Young girl leaves Paddington Bear toy as tribute to the Queen after Jubilee cameo
Watch the moment a young girl recalls leaving her Paddington Bear soft toy as a tribute to the Queen
A young girl who left a Paddington Bear soft toy outside Buckingham Palace in tribute to the Queen said she "brought her Paddington teddy for the Queen because I really liked the Jubilee thing she did with Paddington Bear".
The globally recognised soft toy is among one of the many poignant mementos left by members of the public in memory of the Queen outside Buckingham Palace.
The King and his wife also looked at the letters, cards, bouquets and candles as they made their way into the palace for the first time as the new monarch and Queen Consort.
The Queen recently appeared in a surprise comic sketch with Paddington Bear, as part of the celebrations earlier this year honouring her 70-year reign.
Watch the Queen's Platinum Jubilee sketch with Paddington Bear
The pair recently appeared in a comical sketch together as part of celebrations for the monarch’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, in which they shared tea and marmalade sandwiches at Buckingham Palace.
Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who co-wrote the Queen’s TV appearances with Paddington Bear and Daniel Craig, said she was keen to be involved in the comedy sketches. He said: “That’s real acting that you’re watching there. Paddington isn’t really in the room.
“She’s acting with someone pretending to be Paddington with false eye-lines and she’s got lots and lots of lines and there’s a real joy there. “Paddington stands for a set of values that she stood for as well, for welcoming the stranger, for decency, for politeness in an age that had become very shouty, these were not uncontested values, they are values that she had inhabited and expressed for her whole reign.” Following the news that the Queen has passed away, the official account of Paddington Bear tweeted its respects to the Queen, saying: “Thank you Ma’am, for everything.”
Her cameo appearance in the skit was also mentioned in former Prime Minister Boris Johnson's tribute speech to parliament on Friday.
Johnson told MPs: “I remember her innocent joy more than ten years ago after the opening ceremony of the London Olympics when I told her that a leader of a friendly Middle Eastern country seemed actually to believe that she had jumped out of a helicopter in a pink dress and parachuted into the stadium.”
He added: “I remember her equal pleasure on being told just a few weeks ago that she had been a smash hit in her performance with Paddington Bear.”
The Queen made a few more cameo appearances during her reign, including in Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony for the London Olympics. James Bond, played by 007 actor Craig, called on the palace where the monarch, who was sitting at her writing desk, made him wait before greeting him with the words: “Good evening, Mr Bond.” They walked together alongside corgis towards a helicopter and set off, flying over London to the Olympic stadium, concluding with a stunt double of the Queen parachuting into the arena.
Seconds later the real Queen, wearing the same peach dress as the stunt double, entered the stadium to rapturous applause. Cottrell-Boyce told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme: “She volunteered herself for the Olympic opening ceremony, we didn’t expect her to want to do it. “We went to the palace asking for permission to represent her and to know what she was wearing on the day and it was her amazing dresser who said, ‘No no she wants to be in it.’ She was game and she was up for that. “In fact on the day when we were filming, she asked Danny Boyle if she could have a line because there wasn’t a line in the script, probably because when I was typing the script I didn’t quite know how you would type the character of the Queen, what would you type?”
The remarkable life of the Queen remembered in our latest episode of What You Need To Know